Can Faith Hold?
by Arelite
Summary: Alex begins to doubt his experiences with Kate during his two year wait for her.  On good days, he wonders if he can make the distance.  On bad days, he has moved on entirely, only remembering her as a ghost in a forgotten dream.  Listen in on his thought


**Can Faith Hold?**

**o**

**Alex begins to doubt his experiences with Kate during his two year wait for her. On good days, he wonders if he can make the distance. On bad days, he has moved on entirely, only remembering her as a ghost in a forgotten dream. Listen in to his thoughts.**

**o**

Unseasonable weather always reminded him of _her_, of Kate. He remembered the miraculous way, that balmy February, they had met. _Christ_, it was hard to forget. Who would have thought that they could communicate through words written on paper, delivered, miraculously and ghostlike, though their mutual letter box?

It began that day back in 2004, when he had just moved into the picturesque house on the lake his father had designed and built. It had been vacant for quite some time and in need of some tender love and care. No sooner had he moved in than he'd received a note from the so-called (and non-existent) "past tenant", thinking her quite insane. They began leaving notes for each other, conversing. It took a while for them to figure out that they were communicating from the same day only two years apart! Him being in the past and she supposedly in the future. Once they got past that initial disbelief and, not to mention, _surprise_, it had all unfolded naturally. In fact, so effortlessly one could almost suspect their growing relationship was divinely inspired.

Their bantering chit-chat had unfolded spontaneously, each of them savouring the little notes they received from the other. Soon, it no longer seemed to matter that the very fact they could talk was itself a bizarre miracle. It had almost become commonplace, well, except for the time loops and paradoxes that sprung up now and then as her past intersected his present. Her past she could not change, but his present was still very much under his control and guidance. She wrote him and asked that he pick up her prized copy of Jane Austin's _Persuasion_, which she had left at a train station and was subsequently never seen again. That was when he had gotten his first glance at the dark-haired beauty with the mysterious but sad eyes. To say he had been hooked would be an understatement.

By some miracle, in the form of his pet dog (that had turned up the day he moved into the Lake House, before going on to be _her_ pet dog years later) he had been led to Kate's boyfriend's, Morgan's, house. Alex, realising that the Kate Morgan was seeing was the same as his Kate, took advantage of his hospitality and his invitation to attend Kate's party. There they had kissed, she "meeting" him for the first time, unaware of who he was. He, knowing she would meet him in the future and begin to fall for him. The kiss had _obviously_ been fated, anyone could have seen that. Even Kate, in the future, eventually put two and two together and realised it was him. It was all so entwined; that was one reason it was so romantic. Sure, it would have been romantic if they met in real time and dated in the ordinary way. But this time loop thing went beyond romance and into the realm of magic or, perhaps, divine intervention. So what did it all mean? Really, what _did_ it?

Nowadays, Alex honestly had to wonder. So much time had passed for him. Not Kate though – she was spared that. It was June of 2007 and she had only been corresponding with him via the Lake House mailbox for one year and a bit. But for him, he had known her since the start of 2004! He had already waited two years, at the end of which his life had been saved by her. He knew that it was he who had been hit by that bus whilst crossing the road to Daley Plaza, hit _and _killed. It had begun the whole chain of events that led her to feel homesick for the Lake House and pay it a visit. There she had found the letter he had posted for her….and it all had begun….

But in _this _version of reality, he was not dead. Eventually she had realised that, on that fateful Valentine's day, the man she had tried and failed to save was Alex. By warning him in advance, she had stopped him just in time, stopped him from trying to meet her. For a relationship that was so fated even time couldn't keep them apart, Fate sure was making it hard for them now! Or more correctly, for _him_. He could not touch her now, could not reach out or contact her. Painfully slowly, she was going through the stage right now of writing the very letters that he had received and cherished in 2005. It was new to her, and exciting. It wouldn't be until the day they tried to meet in Il Mare, the day he never showed because he had been killed by the bus, that she would walk away.

So despondent had she been by his no-show she had broken it off. It had been their first and only spat, and it resulted in her halting her correspondence with him. She wasn't to know he couldn't show up at the restaurant because he had been dead. He couldn't change the situation whilst she was telling him that, in her time, he was the one who was a no-show – he couldn't control that. She thought he didn't care, but of course he did, and nothing could have prevented him that day from meeting her, nothing, that is, except Fate. How could he argue with Fate? Fate had stopped him cold because, presumably, it wasn't time. Fate had divine timing mapped out; and seemingly by going against that time, he would flatten himself under a heavy vehicle.

He knew she was waiting for him now! Well, her in the future was waiting for him. Her in the now hadn't even argued with him yet. But he knew the future because she had finally broken her silence and reached out over time to tell him of his fate. She wrote to him from Valentine's day 2008. She saved his life in 2006 and told him to…. wait.

_Alex, I know why you didn't show up that night. It was you at Daley Plaza that day. It was you. Please, don't go. Just wait. Please don't look for me. Don't try to find me. I love you. And it's taken me all this time to say it, but I love you. And if you still care for me, wait for me. Wait with me. Just wait. Wait. Wait two years, Alex. Come to the Lake House. I'm here._

Her meaning was clear; it was all clear. He couldn't go near her or touch her – it added up to unforseen tragedy and bus flattenings. He could not deliberately affect her "now" (which was his past.) She was _supposed to_ fight with him, leave him, then renew her relationship with her old boyfriend, Morgan. If Alex chimed into her life, swaggered in now, all that had happened in his past would be rewritten. It was the time loop. It was death or tragedy to mess with it, that much was clear. Only by waiting two years, by reaching "the date" as he called it - the very day she wrote that last letter, could they begin on the same page, thus escaping the paradox of intersecting his past and her future.

And he had meant to wait. It seemed such an easy task, after all. It required no action; in fact it demanded no action. Simply by existing and being there on that day in 2008, he knew she would be at the Lake House, waiting for him too, _loving_ him. It was only time. Just time. But maybe, after all, it was too much. Because time changed too much. While for her a matter of minutes would pass between writing that note and meeting him there, for him it was two years. A lot changed in two years. Love could vanish in two years. Faith could be lost. He could be lost, and he felt lost right now. He didn't know if he could keep the faith. In fact, he rather suspected that he had already lost it somewhere on the way.

Somewhere along the way of waking up every morning alone, of having no one to chat to during the day, having no one to come home to at night. It gives a man a lot of time to think, and to doubt. Doubt nagged at him, causing him to question. One degree left of questioning was disbelief. It had all been so strange in the first place, miraculously so; how could he possibly keep up that belief now that he was here alone, waiting, unable to contact her, unwilling to take the risk to watch her even?

Faith and belief evaporated on the wind.

Did he ever really love this woman he'd only met in the flesh _once_? Was it a ridiculous and cruel joke? He was at the point where days went by when he forgot to think of her, then weeks could go by with him engrossed in his life, such as it was, with not a single thought or memory of her. _Too much time_. He had been waiting since 2004, and had a little less than one year left, but still….one year! He doubted it was worth it, to be brutally honest.

If another woman came into his life now, he would take her. Hell, he'd snap up any opportunity if it came his way. Not due to desperation, but simply to make a life, like all normal people did. Yet no one else had come along, so far. But if they did, he wouldn't hesitate. He wondered if that was really the mentality of someone who was waiting for their love to come back to them. He knew it wasn't. Whatever business Fate had in connecting the two of them and promising him a chance with her in the future….it was clearly wrong. Perhaps that is just how Fate worked.

It was at this point he realised he had fizzled himself out. That first year had been _wonderful_ for him. Constantly giddy with what they were doing, with their special, almost inter-dimensional, communication. Not to mention how much he had worshipped her. Oh yes, he had, feverishly longing to touch her, to have her. He had been waiting even back then. As Fate had it, he never knew he would have to keep on waiting. The first blossom of love was spent alone with her paper notes and a promise, words! Those fervent years of wishing for her, wasted. Now the bloom had fallen off the rose, the promise became meaningless… time, endless time stretching on as it always did. The odyssey over, the ending….unwritten, true, but too far off for him to care. He couldn't hold onto that intensity of feeling for _four whole years_. Something had to give, and it had. Now he just hoped that she would understand.

He knew he had no intention of waiting for her now. He had moved on, without knowing or meaning to, but nonetheless he had. She would get over it. She would just be glad that he was alive, that she had changed the course of his history and that Valentine's at Daley Plaza. And they would be friends. She had left him once for Morgan; she had not given him a second chance. Now he too had wandered, and she would have to accept it. Just good friends, nothing more.

Wandering through the blind spot, knowing she could not write to him of the future any more, he was content. She would understand, and they would be friends. Now, he really had to get back to his life, plant his feet on the ground once more, and forget about any of this inter-dimensional, time loop stuff involving romance, love and Fate. He'd been there and done that. Now, despite the one date he still had with her on the Valentine's of 2008, it was time to simply live in the real world. It was the only healthy and sane way to live, and he embraced it. Inter-dimensional romance only led to heartache and endless questions. But he was on the right path now, wasn't he?

_Wasn't he?_

He really wished he wasn't the only person to have this happen to them. Why couldn't someone else tell him what to do? He just needed someone else to guide him. He didn't have the answers and could no longer satisfactorily wait for them. It was just that….This Never Happened Before…


End file.
